On the evening of 28th June 2024 from our back garden in Brisbane, I managed to grab 44 frames of 2024 MK as it sped across our Southern skies. There are a couple of gaps in the trail due to intermittent cloud cover.
I took 44x60 sec exposures (sidereal rate) from 7:09pm to 8:01pm AEST (UT+10).
UTC: 2024-06-28T09:09:00Z to UTC: 2024-06-28T10:01:00Z.
When I processed the frames in Pixinsight and took the result into Photoshop for finishing, I noticed that the trail appeared slightly curved.
Using the Photoshop “Line Tool” I drew a straight line along the trail and sure enough, this reveals a gentle curve to the recorded path of 2024 MK.
A plate solve for the frame recorded at 7:34pm AEST provided the following details.
- Center RA (2000.0): 14h 34m 52.33s
- Center Dec (2000.0): -47° 40' 38.1"
- Scale: 0.6520 arcseconds/pixel
- Size (pixels): 3124 x 2088
- Angular Size: 0° 33' 57" x 0° 22' 41"
- Position Angle: 179° 46' from north through east
- FWHM: 3.72 pixels, 2.43 arcseconds
Later, from 8:04pm to 8:09pm AEST (UTC: 2024-06-28T10:04:00Z to UTC: 2024-06-28T10:09:00Z) I was able to grab 6 frames with the mount locked on NEO 2024 MK and you can see the “stepping” of the star trails when the frames were combined.
Celestron C9.25 Edge HD at F10, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera.
Dennis.